KENYA: The First Explorers. Foreword By Wilfred Thesiger

black hardcover 4to ~ 4º (quarto ~ 10.5"x7"). large book. dustwrapper in protective brodart book jacket cover. very fine cond. looks new. like new. as new. binding square & tight. covers clean. edges clean. contents free of markings. dustwrapper in very fine cond. minor wrinkling top of spine. not worn or torn or price clipped. nice clean copy. no library markings, store stamps, stickers, bookplates, no names, inking, underlining, remainder markings etc~. first edition so stated. first printing (#1 in # line). vintage endpaper maps. 207p. glossy pages throughout. 24 pages of glossy full color photo plates. b&w maps & illustrations throughout. select bibliography. index. history of africa. biography. arab history. history of the nile. exploration. cartography. geography.~ Until the latter half of the nineteenth century the interior of the country we now know as Kenya was hidden from the outside world. Scene of internecine strife, hostile tribes, waterless scrubland and trafficking in slaves and ivory, its secrets were revealed only when a handful of remarkable men braved the many dangers to travel inland. Kenya: The First Explorers is the story of five of them. Armed only with their faith in God and a black umbrella, the Rev. Dr Johann Ludwig Krapf and fellow~missionary Johann Rebmann became the first white men to sight equatorial snows, dispelling the myth of 'evil spirits' on the 'silver' mountain of Kilimanjaro. Thirty~five years later, in 1883, Joseph Thomson, a Scot, fired by the exploits of Stanley and Livingstone, 'penetrated through the most dangerous tribe in Africa', the Maasai, to reach the shores of Lake Victoria. His reports of an unknown lake in northern Kenya in turn inspired the Hungarian Count Samuel Teleki von Szek to explore and hunt in this region. Together he and Lieutenant Ludwig von Hohnel endured a thirteen~month journey of hardship and deprivation through a vast no~man's~land to reach at last Lake Turkana, the Jade Sea. Combining extracts from the explorers' diaries, contemporary line engravings and lavish colour photographs, Nigel Pavitt produces a remarkable glimpse of a world that has now all but disappeared. Here is an enthralling account for the armchair traveller, the safari enthusiast and all those intrigued by tales of early exploration.